“Who in the World am I?” asked Alice (in Wonderland). “I’m sure I’m not Ada, she said, For her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I ca’n’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh, she knows such a very little. Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and-oh dear, how puzzling it all is!”

Alas! The mass of accumulating evidence calls our individual separateness into question. Space and time aren’t the walls we think. Experiments suggest the distinction between past and future-and between here and there-are an illusion. This won’t surprise those who, contemplating the works of men such as Plato, Socrates, and Kant, and of Buddha and other great spiritual teachers, kept wondering about the relationship between the universe and the mind of man. Indeed, even Einstein told us that space and time only exist relative to the observer.

Of course, there are nearly seven billion observers on the planet (not to mention the other eight million eukaryotic species). Scientists have traced all of this life back to some single-celled organism in the Archean sea. Indeed, even the matter and energy that makes us up can be traced back in space and time to a singularity. Clearly, we’re all interrelated, but are we part of a single individuality? Perhaps we’re like the cells in our body, constantly dying and being replaced, part of a complex entity greater than ourselves.

organism, you think of how its parts operate as a unified whole, like the workings of a fine watch. For instance, the cells in leaves produce food for a plant, converting sunlight into chemical energy that it can use as food. The cells in its stems and branches transport food and water from the leaves and roots to the whole organism. Of course, instead of branches, we vertebrates have bones for support, and muscles that give us the ability to locomote and hunt for food. This dynamic interrelationship occurs between species as well, not only in our gut but on a planet-wide scale. We oxygen-breathing lifeforms inhale oxygen and then exhale carbon dioxide; plants then take in the CO2 and use it in their photosynthesis process and in turn give off or “exhale” oxygen.

But there’s more to it than that. We animals interpret the world using space and time-“sensitive concepts,” which, according to biocentrism, are forms in the mind, not hard, external realities. Our individual separateness in space and time (as, for instance, you and I, or Alice, Ada and Mabel) is, in a sense, illusory. Life is a complex play of cells, some around when you’re young, some around when you’re old, but they are all, regardless of species, ephemeral forms of an entity that transcends the walls of space and time.

“I would say,” said Loren Eiseley, the great anthropologist, “that if ‘dead’ matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, ‘but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.'”

At first glance, it seems bizarre that a frog in the rain forest or a dolphin in the ocean should be directly connected to us. But the double-slit experiment-as well as others-have repeatedly shown that a single particle can be in more than one place at the same time. See the loon in the pond or the dandelion in the field. How deceptive is the space that separates them and makes them solitary. They’re the subjects of the same reality that interested John Bell, who proposed the experiment that answered the question of whether what happens locally is affected by nonlocal events.

Experiments from 1997 to 2007 have consistently shown that this is indeed the case. Physicist Nicolas Gisin sent entangled particles zooming along optical fibers until they were seven miles apart. But whatever action they took, the communication between them happened instantaneously. Today no one doubts the connectedness between bits of light or matter, or even entire clusters of atoms. They’re intimately linked in a manner suggesting there’s no space between them, and no time influencing their behavior. In fact, just this month a team of researchers published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature (Yin et al, 488, 185, 2012) extending this distance to unprecedented lengths-they achieved quantum teleportation across Qinghai Lake in China, a distance of 97 kilometers, roughly equivalent to the distance between New York City and Philadelphia.

In the same way, there is a part of us that’s connected to each other. It’s the part that experiences consciousness, not in our external embodiments but in our inner being. And although we identify ourselves with our thoughts and affections, it’s an essential feature of reality that we experience the world piece by piece. As parts of such a whole we are all one. “Non-separability,” said physicist Bernard d’Espagnat, “is now one of the most certain general concepts in physics.”

Heinz Pagels, the esteemed theoretical physicist, once stated: “If you deny the objectivity of the world, unless you observe it and are conscious of it (as most physicists have), then you end up with solipsism-the belief that your consciousness is the only one.” Pagels’ conclusion is right, except it’s not your consciousness that is the only one, it’s ours. According to biocentrism, our individual separateness may be an illusion. Remember the old Hindu poem: “Know in thyself and All one self-same soul; banish the dream that sunders part from whole.”

That consciousness which was behind the youth you once were, may also be behind the mind of every animal and person existing in space and time. “There are,” wrote Eiseley “very few youths today who will pause, coming from a biology class, to finger a yellow flower or poke in friendly fashion at a sunning turtle on the edge of the campus pond, and who are capable of saying to themselves, ‘We are all one-all melted together.'”

There is more to life than dreamed of in our science and religions. John Haldane, British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist, once said “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Biocentrism suggests space and time aren’t the only tools that can be used to construct reality. Although our destiny is to live and die in the everyday world of up and down, these algorithms could be changed so that instead of time being linear, it was three-dimensional-like space. We’d be able to walk through time just like we walk through space. Life would be able to escape from its corporeal cage. Indeed, our destiny likely lies in realities that exist outside of the known universe.

So say goodbye to death, and fasten your seatbelt for a mind-blowing ride through space and time … and beyond.

Lanza's Paper is the Cover Story of Annalen der Physik, which Published Einstein's Theories of Relativity

In his papers on relativity, Einstein showed that time was relative to the observer. This new paper takes this one step further, arguing that the observer creates it. The paper shows that the intrinsic properties of quantum gravity and matter alone cannot explain the tremendous effectiveness of the emergence of time and the lack of quantum entanglement in our everyday world. Instead, it’s necessary to include the properties of the observer, and in particular, the way we process and remember information.

The quest to unify all of physics into a “the theory of everything” has inspired a host of ideas. Now a pioneer in the field of stem cell research has weighed in with an essay that brings biology and consciousness into the mix.

Lanza featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC’s) Ideas, one of the oldest and most respected radio programs in the world

BEYOND BIOCENTRISM: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of DeathHost Paul Kennedy has his understanding of reality turned-upside-down by Dr. Robert Lanza in this paradigm-shifting hour. Dr. Lanza provides a compelling argument for consciousness as the basis for the universe, rather than consciousness simply being its by-product.

Reception to Biocentrism by Scientists & Scholars

“… Robert Lanza’s work is a wake-up call to all of us”—David Thompson, Astrophysicist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

“The heart of [biocentrism], collectively, is correct…So what Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it–or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private–furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no! Bless Robert Lanza for creating this book, and bless Bob Berman for not dissuading friend Robert from going ahead with it…Lanza’s remarkable personal story is woven into the book, and is uplifting. You should enjoy this book, and it should help you on your personal journey to understanding.”—Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

“It is genuinely an exciting piece of work…and coheres with some of the things biology and neuroscience are telling us about the structures of our being. Just as we now know that the sun doesn’t really move but we do (we are the active agents), so it is suggesting that we are the entities that give meaning to the particular configuration of all possible outcomes we call reality.”—Ronald Green, Eunice & Julian Cohen Professor and Director, Ethics Institute, Dartmouth College

“[Biocentrism] takes into account all the knowledge we have gained over the last few centuries…placing in perspective our biologic limitations that have impeded our understanding of greater truths surrounding our existence and the universe around us. This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come.”—Anthony Atala, renowned scientist, W.H. Boyce Professor, Chair, and Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

“Having interviewed some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific world, I found Dr. Robert Lanza’s insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which say that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world.”—Deepak Chopra, Bestselling Author, one of the top heroes and icons of the century

“It’s a masterpiece…combines a deep understanding and broad insight into 20th century physics and modern biological science; in so doing, he forces a reappraisal of this hoary epistemological dilemma…Bravo”—Michael Lysaght, Professor and Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brown University

“Now that I have spent a fair amount of time the last few months doing a bit of writing, reading and thinking about this, and enjoying it and watching it come into better focus, And as I go deeper into my Zen practice, And as I am about half way through re-reading Biocentrism, My conclusion about the book Biocentrism is: Holy shit, that’s a really great book!—Ralph Levinson, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

From physicist Scott M. Tyson’s bookThe Unobservable Universe

“I downloaded a digital copy of [Biocentrism] in the privacy of my home, where no one could observe my buying or reading such a “New Agey” sort of cosmology book. Now, mind you, my motivation was not all that pure. It was my intention to read the book so I could more effectively refute it like a dedicated physicist was expected to. I consider myself to be firmly and exclusively entrenched in the cosmology camp embodied by the likes of Stephen Hawking, Lisa Randall, Brain Greene, and Edward Witten. After all, you know what Julius Caesar said: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” I needed to know what the other camps were thinking so I could better defend my position. It became necessary to penetrate the biocentrism camp.

The book had the completely opposite effect on me. The views that Dr. Lanza presented in this book changed my thinking in ways from which there could never be retreat. Before I had actually finished reading the book, it was abundantly obvious to me that Dr. Lanza’s writings provided me with the pieces of perspective that I had been desperately seeking. Everything I had learned and everything I thought I knew just exploded in my mind and, as possibilities first erupted and then settled down, a completely new understanding emerged. The information I had accumulated in my mind hadn’t changed, but the way I viewed it did— in a really big way.”

I spent a couple of years rolling pennies and eating canned spinach and pasta while I tried to understand the universe.

U.S. News & World Report Cover Story

“…his mentors described him [Lanza] as a “genius,” a “renegade” thinker, even likening him to Einstein.”

“Robert Lanza is the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting. Growing up underprivileged in Stoughton, Mass., south of Boston, the young preteen caught the attention of Harvard Medical School researchers when he showed up on the university steps having successfully altered the genetics of chickens in his basement. Over the next decade, he was to be “discovered” and taken under the wing of scientific giants such as psychologist B. F. Skinner, immunologist Jonas Salk, and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard. His mentors described him as a “genius,” a “renegade” thinker, even likening him to Einstein.”

We’re taught that the universe can be fundamentally divided into two entities: ourselves and that which is outside of us. But you’re not an object — if you divorce one side of the equation from the other you cease to exist.

New experiments suggest part of us exists outside of the physical world. We assume there’s a universe “out there” separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet experiments show just the opposite.

Ideally, our concepts of nature and God should adapt to our evolving scientific knowledge. Relative to the supreme creator, we humans would be much like the microorganisms we scrutinize under the microscope.

Biocentrism unlocks the cage Western science has unwittingly confined itself. By allowing the observer into the equation opens new approaches to understanding everything from the tiny world of the atom to our views of life and death.

We take physics as a kind of magic and think everything just popped into existence one day out of nothingness. But we’re living through a profound shift in worldview, from the belief that life is an insignificant part of the physical universe, to one in which we’re the origin.

We’re about to be broadsided by the most explosive event in history. But it won’t be rockets that take us the next step. Sometime in the future science life will finally figure out how to escape from its corporeal cage.

Everyone knows that something is screwy with the way we visualize the cosmos. Theories of its origins screech to a halt when they reach the very event of interest — the moment of creation, the “Big Bang.”

If we could see before the first single-cell organism, and after the last man and woman, only you would remain — you, the Great Face behind, that consciousness whose mode of thinking that contains the world.

We think of time and consciousness in human terms. But like us, plants possess receptors, microtubules and sophisticated intercellular systems that likely facilitate a degree of spatio-temporal consciousness.

Did you ever wonder why people like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson didn’t fare any better than you or I despite all their money, fame, and access to people of wisdom? The answer lies in your own backyard.

It seems natural that someday we’ll make machines that’ll think and act like people. However, for a machine or computer there’s no other principle but physic, and the chemistry of the atoms that compose it.